Helping with tech questions - TweakTown's Ask the Experts - Page 1

Hi John,

Thanks for reaching out! We can certainly help with this issue. First, I'm only guessing, but I will assume this drive is new, fresh out of the box? If so, the likely culprit is the drive hasn't been initialized.

To initialize the drive, we will need to boot into Windows 10, right click on the Start Menu and go to Disk Management. From here, you will likely see a box pop-up asking you to initialize your drive with an MBR or GPT Partition Table.

Now, for secondary storage, it doesn't really matter which you use, but there are caveats. MBR can't handle drives over 2TB and it also has a limit on how many partitions you can create. GPT doesn't have these restrictions, so I myself default to it.

Once you choose which partition type you will use, we will then create a volume by right click on the drive and selecting new simple volume and a window will open. In this window, you will hit next several times until you see finish. Job complete, your drive should now be usable.

Hi Gavin,

Thanks for the question! As you may or may not know, DRAM has additional settings that affect its performance like timings and voltage.

When you mix different speeds of DRAM, JEDEC settings will allow the sticks to work together in most cases with a default timing and voltage setup with the downside being you won't be able to run XMP or DOCP. This is why many will recommend you buy your memory in "kit" form.

With M.2 SSDs, you don't necessarily need to worry too much about matching drives, unless you are planning to setup a glorious RAID array with your EVO+. I would, however, stick to known brands with a solid warranty like the Samsung, Western Digital, and SanDisk solutions have.

One thing you do need to pay attention to is your motherboard's M.2 configuration and in your case, your bottom M.2 slot comes off the Z390 chipset and supports both SATA and NVMe M.2 drives.

Hi Fawazilla,

When it comes to air cooling, there are plenty of options. If I were to purchase for my own system, I would start by looking at coolers that support 140mm fans, as they will give you the least amount of noise while moving a good amount of air.

Some of the best 140mm coolers over the last few years have been the Dark Rock 4 Pro from be quiet! and the Noctua NH-D15. Both coolers offer a similar noise level in our testing at 27dB with temperatures at 70 and 73 Celsius in an overclocked test scenario.

If your chassis doesn't support the height or width of a 140mm cooler, I would suggest a move down to a 120mm solution, such as the Dark Rock Slim or NH-U12 Series. Optionally, look into AIO water cooling, with solutions such as the Thermaltake Flow, Corsair H115i, or NZXT Kraken X52.

Joakim,

I would start by trying to rectify the issue with your current "gaming" PC. Your symptoms of USB port issues and slow load times make me think you have an unstable overclock. Have you tried to run it stock to see if the issue clears up?

In all honesty, your current gaming PC is a solid build and should be able to handle streaming without the need for the second machine; what is your current storage situation?

As for building a high-end Ryzen; if you want to go this route, I would suggest you start your build by budgeting for an X570 motherboard and R7 3700X or higher for the added cores and SMT. You can keep your 32GB of DDR4 if its at least 3600MHz and your GTX 1080 is still a capable GPU.

Assuming you are going to part out or sell your two current machines to pay for the Ryzen build, you should be very close to coming out even or at the most out of pocket by around $100 USD.

Hi Omri,

This answer is going to depend a lot on what you are using this machine for. If it's a standard gaming build, all three options you provided will get the job done. Some of the biggest differences between the boards are USB ports and speed. The B450 boards offer a single 10Gbps USB 3.1 port, whereas the X570 offers two USB 3.2 ports.

As far as m.2 slots go, the B450 boards offer one slot for SATA and NVMe drives, but the X570 has two slots - one supporting PCIe 4.0, hence opening you up to a world of very quick SSDs.

All of that said, I would be leaning towards the X570 if you can swing the increased cost. If not, either of the B450 boards you chose will get you by, but you may need to look into a BIOS update, as they don't list compatibility for third-gen AMD Ryzen processors.

Hi Steven,

Thanks for the question! I'll start by saying a 280mm AIO should be plenty for a 9900K. That being said, you do need to check a few things, the first being the fan speed on the H115, are they running at all? If so, do you feel heat being pulled through the radiator?

My second thought is Corsair transferred their solutions over to iCue from Corsair Link a while back. Make sure the software is installed and the pump is running full speed to dissipate the heat more efficiently.

Hi Devin,

I know the feeling of getting bored with a build, I change parts a lot myself. With that said, Intel's Z270 chipset pretty much maxes out with the Core i7 7700K CPU that you have.

Not all is lost, though. If you are comfortable with it, you could likely sell your current setup and get enough to purchase a decent AMD X570 motherboard, then you will only be out of pocket on the CPU.

AMD's Ryzen 5 3600 will be comparable to your current 7700K, so you can start there with plenty of upgrade options in your future.

Hi Paul,

First off, thanks for the question!

SSDs come from the vendor with a certain level of overprovisioning (OP) baked in. Most drives are set somewhere around 7% capacity, this means your 240GB drive is 256GB and so on. Samsung Magician recommends users set OP to 10% for heavy workloads, but for typical gaming, the default settings work fine.

If your performance issue arises after filling the drive past 75% capacity, I would honestly look towards migrating to a higher capacity solution. No level of overprovisioning will help an SSD that's full of data.

Hey John,

This is a hard one because now AMD has some great Navi-based graphics cards that make the decision between Team Red and Team Green that much harder... but there is no wrong decision here.

I'm a big fan of both the RTX 2060 SUPER (my review here) and RX 5700 XT (my review here) so it would come down to the monitor. I play two of the games you mentioned here (Apex Legends and Overwatch) and I have been doing extensive testing of both of these games in real-world testing on both the RTX 2060 SUPER and RX 5700 XT.

Both of these cards can handle 1080p and 1440p at 120-144FPS average if you dial some of the in-game details down, as you want to ensure you're hitting those high FPS numbers in esports games.

Amazon has the Samsung CJG5 monitor for $320, offering a huge 32-inch display with a native 1440p res and 144Hz refresh rate. This will work beautifully with either FreeSync or G-Sync, and will work on either of the graphics cards you're looking at.

Personally, I think the 30-32 inch monitor size with 1440p native res and slick 144Hz refresh rate is perfect. 27-inch is a little too small, and really - the 32-inch model is only $50 more. The 27-inch model is $268 if the $320 price is out of your budget.

Hi Simon,

I'm not 100% familiar with the Corsair MP600 myself, but in gathering information, I did note several reviews where the heat sink was removed for testing. I would go out on a limb and say the drive likely has a set of screws mounting the heat sink from behind and no further adhesive is used to hold the two together.

That said, I would look around the drive to make sure there isn't a warranty void sticker before removing the heat sink. If you do decide to remove the heat sink, your drive should then be a familiar 2280 m.2 solution and should fit with ease into your X570 motherboard.

You may also want to do your own research first if it is a good idea to even remove the heat sink, as it is likely there for a reason and heat could become an issue and might decrease the life of the drive.